StageTools' MovingPicture
Making Moves on Stills
by Mark Weiser
Millimeter Magazine
February 2000
Into the Yellowstone is the first of a four-part series on the exploration of the Western U.S. during the 1870s This segment focuses on the Hayden exploration, which in part led to the formation of Yellowstone, the first national park, in 1872.
Like many documentaries depicting times before movies were common, Into the Yellowstone relies heavily on still images. Adding motion to them is important to set the pace, provide visual interest, and lead the audience through the show.
Rather than use an animation stand to create the motion on these images, I used a new tool from StageTools called MovingPicture. MovingPicture is a PC-based software package that allows producers to create pans and zooms over still images in real-time. (The program runs on Macs as well, but needs the VirtualPC program running.)
I ended up shooting over 350 motion sequences (about three hours), about 125 of which (approximately 30 minutes) made it into the final show. Being able to produce these shots in-house gave me a wider selection of footage to work with; the budget wouldn't have allowed that kind of shooting ratio at $200 per hour for a conventional animation camera. I was also able to get the shots I wanted without having to explain my ideas to a camera operator.
Although securing the rights to the images in the film was an arduous process, actually getting the images was relatively simple. Many of them came from the work of a geological-expedition photographer, William Henry Jackson, who took several hundred glass-plate photographs. The images are now in the National Archives, which has made them available over the Internet. I was able to download 87 GIF files of reasonable quality rather than obtain costly prints and scan them. Unfortunately, the relatively low resolution (800 by 600 pixels) meant I would not be able to zoom in more than 3:1 before the pixels became noticeable in MovingPicture.
I was also able to scan in high-res images from a book of exhibition paintings by Thomas Moran, published by the Gilcrease Museum. The added resolution allowed me to zoom in as close as I needed to without any degradation in the image. Once all the pictures were gathered, I was ready to create the moves on them using the MovingPicture program.
MovingPicture simulates a traditional animation camera. The digitized image is loaded into the system and appears on the left of the screen (the Stage). A yellow square over the Stage (the Camera) indicates what part of the image the virtual camera will 'see." A window to the right of the Stage (the Viewfinder) displays the Camera's point of view (the same way a real camera viewfinder or video-assist monitor would).
You position the Camera by dragging it and moving it across the image on the Stage. Grabbing one of the corners lets you stretch or squeeze out the box, in effect zooming in and out of the picture. You can also rotate the image (for things like newspaper spins, etc.). As the Camera shifts, what it points at is instantly shown in the Viewfinder's window.
Creating moves in MovingPicture is equally simple using keyframes to create motion paths. When you position the Camera and specify a point on the timeline for it, a keyframe is added to the show. (Those familiar with a nonlinear editing system will feel right at home with the concept.) Any number of keyframes can be added, making complex curved motion paths easy to do. MovingPicture plots a smooth curve between keyframed points and allows you to change how the moves start and end by using tapered eases.
The beauty of the system is that you can instantly play your moves in real-time, with no time-consuming rendering required. Any corrections in position or timing are easily made and viewed instantly. The shows can be played either in a small window or across the entire screen.
MovingPicture relies on an OpenGL-based 3D card to provide smooth real-time motions on high-resolution stills. These cards are becoming standard on many new PCs and often cost less than $150 with S-Video output.
I used my home PC, which did not have a 3D card inside, to create all the moves, so I did not have silky-smooth motion whenever I played my shows. But when it was time to lay my moves onto tape, I copied the images and show files onto a Zip disk and brought them to the office computer, which had a 3D card that allowed them to play smoothly.
MovingPicture will also create AVI movie files, which can be imported directly into nonlinear editing systems. Our team chose to output the shows directly from the computer in real-time, rather than wait for time-consuming rendering and the extremely large files it produces. We just plugged the Sony BetaCam deck into the computer-through both a serial cable for machine control and S-Video for better quality than the composite video output could provide.
MovingPicture has a conforming feature that let us lay off a collection of moves at once. It queued up the VTR, inserted a slate between each shot, and then played the move. I could select the amount of head and tail holds and run the shot forward or in reverse.
MovingPicture also created a log in Avid's ALE log format, which made the process of digitizing the resulting footage a snap, since the tapes were pre-logged. At various points, I printed out storyboards of sequences onto the printer to view while working with the script. I edited the show using these scenes, coupled with live-action footage of interviews and B-roll shots, and finished it directly from our Avid 8000 editor.
Using MovingPicture gave me the freedom and flexibility to create a better documentary than would have been possible using traditional motion control.
Mark Weiser is an associate producer with Take Aim Productions who has worked for National Geographic Television. Take Aim Productions, Silver Spring, Maryland, offers full-service media design from concept through distribution. The company also consults on media budgeting and planning. For more information, visit www.takeaimpro.com.
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Copyright (c) 2000 Intertec Publishing -- All rights reserved
